


dreaming

by silkinsilence



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 06:21:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2802653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkinsilence/pseuds/silkinsilence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Azula finds a hint of happiness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dreaming

She still had nightmares.

Sometimes she still dreaded sleep. Barely would her eyes have closed, and then he would be there. Azula was a child again, trapped under the body of a man much larger than her, much more powerful than her, and who controlled her body and soul. She remembered the way his fingers felt, searing hot, on her skin, the way his lips would press along her form in the mockery of a kiss, the way his teeth would bare and dig into her skin, leaving marks that were her responsibility to cover. And then he would enter her without warning, and stars would burst in front of her eyes, and she would pretend it didn't hurt—

"Azula!"

Someone was shaking her. The visions left as quickly as they had come, and Azula returned to the real world. She had fallen asleep at her desk, even though it was only late afternoon; the past few nights had all been long and restless.

Ty Lee was the one who had awakened her, and now the former acrobat was rubbing soft circles on Azula's back. Azula blinked away the grogginess, leaving the memory of her father in the dust where it belonged.

"Another nightmare?" Ty asked. Azula grunted. Ty Lee's hands moved from her wife's back to her hair, stroking it out, combing it through with her fingers. Her touch was so soft, so gentle. Some part of Azula still wondered that touch could be more than reprehensible, that it could heal as well as hurt.

The sight of Azula shaking and crying out in her sleep had used to be upsetting to Ty Lee, and Azula had grown weary of repeated inquiries as to whether she was all right. Now Ty had grown used to it, responding with love rather than fear.

Azula still had nightmares, but now there was someone else there when she awoke, and so they weren't as terrifying anymore.

"Fire Lord Azula, some tea." A servant bowed and left the cup on the table in front of her. Azula stared out her vast windows at the city. Its lights were just starting to come on, looking like tiny stars against the backdrop of the darkening sky.

"You've been working too hard lately," Ty Lee said, finally seating herself beside Azula. "I know you hate giving any jobs to other people, but you're going to kill yourself."

"What else am I to do when I can't sleep?" Azula rubbed an impatient hand across her burning eyes. Insomnia still plagued her most nights, leaving her awake to attend to paperwork and bending practice while her two Fire Ladies slumbered on.

"You can always keep us awake," came a voice from the doorway. Both women turned to see the third member of their trio standing there, her face as inscrutable as ever despite the playful words that had just fallen from her lips.

"What news from the Earth Kingdom?" Azula asked. Mai crossed the room without invitation and seated herself on the desk.

"Another eighteen resistors caught and publically executed," Mai shrugged. "Still no sign of the Avatar's friends. The general suggests that a full-scale assault on the Northern Water Tribe might lure them out."

Disappointing, not that Azula suspected anything different. It had been five years since the dramatic appearance of Sozin's Comet in the skies—five years since the Avatar's death at Ozai's hands, five years since Azula had slaughtered her brother. Only four years since Ozai had caught a mysterious illness and succumbed to death. Four years of power, passion, and a red throne with her Fire Ladies at her side. Four years of the reign of Fire Lord Azula, the Blue Phoenix.

"Ty Lee says I've been working too hard," Azula sighed, leaning back in her chair. "What do you say, Mai? Shall we take a vacation? I hear Ember Island is lovely this time of year."

"I'm surprised taking time off is even on your mind," Mai said with a raised eyebrow. "And here I thought you wouldn't rest until every last knee was bent before you."

Azula stared past her wives out at the lights of the city, staring out at her world, at her future. A smile curled her lips as she imagined the Avatar's friends out there, scurrying through shadows, their lives marked with bounty and their deaths as certain as the next sunrise.

"We have time, Mai."

Pain brought her back to the present, awaking her mind from the shell it had so carefully constructed for her. Ozai's hands were clenched around her waist and burning her skin, burning into her flesh as his movements slowed. Azula's whole body was aching, covered with a hundred new bruises she couldn't remember receiving. He hadn't bothered being gentle with her since Zuko had abandoned them. Even now, as he leaned down and whispered in her ear, his voice seemed to carry a threat, so Azula stayed still, utterly still.

"Tomorrow everything changes, Azula. Tomorrow I'll sit on top of the world. The comet is coming. You can feel it too, can't you, burning through your veins?"

He wasn't looking for an answer, so Azula didn't give him one. She waited until Ozai was asleep and then pulled her robe about her and went walking through the halls on the way back to her room.

She felt like a ghost, trapped in two worlds. Her mind returned again and again to the traitorous fantasy she'd imagined for herself, and she hated herself for it. Her _friends_  were trapped in a prison they'd never escape again, stuck in a hell of their own choosing. That dream had died at the Boiling Rock. Yet here she was, clinging on to it, holding such pathetic sentiment for something that would never come true.

Azula didn't sleep that night. She stared out the window, remembering visions of a future that now would never be.

 


End file.
